AFP: MASBATE, BASILAN BLASTS NOT CONNECTED

An explosion that rocked Masbate City’s port area on Wednesday night was not connected to the bombing in Basilan province that killed 11 people a day earlier, the military said on Thursday.

“There is no link to establish that these are related. So these are two different, isolated incidents,” said the Armed Forces spokesperson, Col. Edgard Arevalo.

The military has blamed the Abu Sayyaf group for the Basi- lan bombing and dismissed claims of responsibility by the Islamic State jihadi group as propaganda.

Arevalo said investigators were still looking into the bombing in Masbate and it was too early to pin responsibility on any group.

The Army 9th Infantry Division spokesperson, Capt. Joash Pramis, said there were no casualties in the blast from a pipe bomb near the port, where small boats, including a speed boat of the Coast Guard, were moored. One motorized banca was damaged.

Pramis said information so far gathered indicated the explosion was a “nuisance atrocity” to show “disorder.” He did not say who would benefit from the disturbance.

“As to the target, it seems there was none because the explosion happened at night and there was nobody around when [the bomb] was detonated,” he said in a phone interview with reporters in Manila.

“Our unit in Masbate is also looking into the incident and gathering information and evidence to identify the perpetrator,” he added.